Lindstrøm
Six Cups of Rebel
6.9/10
Lindstrøm is a Norwegian producer and electronic musician and in 2009 Lindstrøm & Christabelle released Real Life is No Cool — an LP I still find myself coming back to thanks to its funkified jams and lush, groovy sounds. In 2008, the producer dropped Where You Go I Go Too an album that took sometime to getting used to but provided an array of sounds that was both mesmerizing and catchy. Now, Lindstrøm comes to us with his latest record Six Cups of Rebel; an album that brings together the least interesting parts of his last two efforts.
Six Cups starts off strongly with the Phantom of the Opera opener “No Release.” An organ loop plays over and over while a hungry and dark synth line boils up and up until the pot spills over into the next track and lead single “Deja Vu.” “Deja Vu” also happens to be one of the strongest songs on the LP as it recalls elements that made Real Life so successful: a thick bass synth bounces back and forth over drum loops and catchy chanting and backing vocals propel the track into an epic disco-funk smash.
Then we have “Magik,” another stellar song that’s kind of like “Deja Vu” lite. Synths are sharper here and things buzz and float instead of feel heavy and thick. Lindstrøm sings in a Michael Jackson falsetto and the song pretty much mirrors the best that Real Life had to offer. “Quiet Place to Live” is a hard 80s cut with bustling electric guitars and Lindstrøm’s altered vocals and repeats ”All I want is a quiet place to live.” And yes, don’t worry the synths are still here!
The last three track is where Six Cups severely becomes undone. “Call Me Anytime” opens up with an annoying flute or recorder that is like nails on a chalkboard. It eventually stops but what we get is this weird cacophony of sound that sounds like a members of a high school marching band each decided to play their loudest note at the same time. The track then shifts gears into a decent song that is reminiscent to Where You Go. The title track is a continuation of the before mentioned but doesn’t really take off. There are some nice ideas here with Lindstrøm’s synth work but it’s nothing we all haven’t heard before. Finally we come to the 10 min. and 30 sec. closing track “Hina” (yes the LP only contains seven songs but clocks in at 53 min.). Synths bounce back and forth among congo drums and bells for far too long. Then Lindstrøm’s echoey voice slips in and we get some more synth effect and blah blah blah at this point you’re pretty much fed up with everything and want to just get to the end of the damn song. There aren’t enough changes in the 10 and a half min. song to keep interesting instead of annoying.
It’s unfortunate that the second half of the record kills the album, but it really does. If Six Cups of Rebel were cut down to the first 4 tracks and it was labeled as an EP, you’d have one mean and lean sounding set of songs. But Lindstrøm didn’t and this is what we have to work with. Hopefully Lindstrøm will learn to self edit as well as find a better singer to work with — his vocals aren’t the best and although Christabelle’s voice can be very captivating at times I would be very interested in hearing what a true vocalist would sound like behind Lindstrøm’s insane beats. Here’s hoping…
Listen to Lindstrøm’s ”Deja Vu” below:
